After Sorrow Comes Joy (Paperback)

~ Cherie Clark (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

After Sorrow Comes Joy

Cherie Clark, the internationally famous nurse and mother of ten children, has devoted more than thirty years of her life to helping orphaned and abandoned children.

This book, planned to be the first of a trilogy, starts with her early life in Peru, Indiana, and leads the reader quickly through her awakening concern for war-torn Viet Nam, resulting in the decision to adopt three children of mixed race from that country. Eventually, as a nurse, Cherie decides to go to Viet Nam, along with her husband and seven small children, to open a home for abandoned and orphaned children. The book is a moving and dynamic account of her ceaseless struggle to nourish and find adoptive homes for hundreds of children, while living within the hell that followed the American withdrawal from Viet Nam. The story culminates in April 1975 when, through Operation Babylift, Cherie is safely airlifted out with her children, only to return to help others escape on the last planeload of babies to be rescued from Viet Nam.

The final two chapters give a glimpse of what is to come in the rest of the trilogy. Following her departure from Viet Nam, a restless Cherie went to Calcutta and met with Mother Teresa, who invited her to come and work with her. Determined to carry on her work with orphans, Cherie returned to India with her own young children in 1976. There they lived in some of the poorest slums as she opened dispensaries and clinics and rescued thousands of babies and children from orphanages, prisons, and the back streets of Calcutta. In the process she helped nearly ten thousand children find adoptive homes in America and throughout the world.

In 1988 Cherie accepted an invitation to join a delegation to become one of the first Westerners to travel to Viet Nam, by then an entirely communist country. Returning to Saigon after an absence of twelve years, Cherie felt she was returning home. Picking up from where she had been forced to leave off years before, she began working with Vietnamese officials and plunged headlong into the task of helping the poor, the unwanted and the orphaned. This book has 130 dramatic pictures to take you through the journey. This is a story that will inspire you as well as bring you to tears. It is one of those books that simply cannot be put down.

About the Author

Cherie Clark is a courageous, giving woman who embodies a love that transcends color, race, religion and politics. She is fiercely determined to give all children a chance in life that fate has seemingly cheated them out of. Cherie founded the International Mission of Hope, now a thriving and respected organization, funded solely by donations, which is involved in feeding and caring for children and elderly people, helping with disaster relief and reforestation, and facilitating the adoption of some 250 children every year. Cherie's group has also built a rural health care clinic in My Lai. She and most of her family currently live in Hanoi and operate child care centers throughout Viet Nam.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Lawrence & Thomas Publishing House (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0615115624
• ISBN-13: 978-0615115627
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #532,409 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting!, August 15, 2000

By	Allison Martin (ComeUnity) - See all my reviews

After Sorrow Comes Joy is the riveting autobiographical story of Cherie Clark's entry into the world of international adoption. It culminates in her dramatic, humanitarian efforts to aid the babies and children left disolute by the aftermath of the Vietnamese American War. Inspired by her own adoptions and a meeting with Mother Teresa in India, Cherie responded to the call of her heart to journey to Vietnam where she founded the International Mission of Hope. After Sorrow Comes Joy documents the story of how Cherie found a home in Vietnam caring for the sick and abandoned babies and children trapped in a frightened and poor war-torn country.

Following the end of the Vietnamese-American war, Vietnam was still torn in two by fighting between the North and South Vietnamese armies. Americans, Europeans and thousands of Vietnamese people were rapidly fleeing the country as city after city fell to Communist rule. This stirring account describes how Cherie Clark cared for the babies and children of Vietnam during this period of chaos, uniting them with families and medical care and food that they needed to survive. It is also an account of bureaucracy gone amoke. Normal channels failed as families and even basic government services were caught in the a war crashing down upon them. During this upheaval the heroism of the Vietnamese and Americans who cared for the orphans and abandoned children is heart wrenching. After Sorrow Comes Joy brings this tulmultuous time back to life with clarity and intimacy.

Readers will find themselves captivated by many of the scenes in this book - including Cherie Clark's heartfelt return to Vietnam 20 years after the war, her children's escape from a collapsing Vietnam, her first visits to the orphanages that many continue to adopt from today, and several kidnapping attempts including that of her own daughter.

After Sorrow Comes Joy is informative and engrossing on many levels. It is an historical account of the beginning of adoption in Vietnam. It is a personal account of a family's growth through adoption. It is a stirring documentary of a period of history that for years has remained best forgotten, but which still startles in its immediacy. Hundreds of pictures flesh out the dramatic stories. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Vietnam, in the antecedents of Vietnamese adoption or in the International Mission of Hope. Rarely do adoptive parents get such a personal glimpse into the lives of those who will be assisting them as they find their own forever families.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book., August 4, 2000

By	Susan Harrison (Colorado) - See all my reviews

As a mom of biological children as well as a Vietnamese daughter, Kelly, I quickly "connected" with Tom and Cherie Clark in the first portion of Cherie's book, After Sorrow Comes Joy. Reading some of her statements, was like a flashback to my thoughts and feelings during Kelly's adoption. One of the comments was when Cherie said, "pregnancy did nothing to prepare me for this intense longing I would have for a child I had never met." It's one of those things you can't adequately explain to people who haven't been there.

Cherie's vivid descriptions of life in Vietnam help me to understand more about the birthcountry of my daughter, and the devastation that was caused by a war I was too young to care about at the time. The Clark's desire and willingness to live in a war-torn country and care for so many needy children, should ignite in all of us a greater desire to deny ourselves and serve this world. They made a significant difference in so many lives. A difference that continues into the present and future of many lives.

Cherie commented that during one of her trips back to Vietnam, the "smell of Vietnam" overwhelmed her with memories of her time there. I remember the first time I walked into the Denver Vietnamese market after adopting Kelly. I burst into tears, because the smell was the smell of me finally going to Saigon and seeing my baby. Nothing ever smelled so wonderful! Another thing you can't adequately describe to others.

As my husband and I pursue the adoption of a Vietnamese boy with the help of Cherie's organization, International Mission of Hope, I feel indebted to her for her active expression of love for my baby's country, for her love of orphans and others in need, and for her desire to give up so many American comforts to experience the the vast joy that comes only from denying yourself and serving others wholeheartedly.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable History in this Inspiring Memoir, September 11, 2000

By	Richard A. Ruth "ruqi" (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews

This book is necessary reading for anyone who wants a complete picture of the Vietnam War. Cherie Clark's memoir succeeds where so many other memoirs, histories, and journalistic accounts fall short. While most books lose interest in events after the final American troop pullout in 1972, Clark's book provides a vivid depiction of life in South Vietnam during the frantic final years of the war. The book also fills the gap left by so many accounts in its description of the desperate conditions endured by regular Vietnamese caught in the middle of the conflict. While issues of global politics and military strategy comprise the vast majority of books published about Vietnam, Clark's book is exceptional in its unflinching view of how the consequences of those issues affected the lives of so many women and children. From beginning to end, After Sorrow Comes Joy is gripping, honest, and interesting. But perhaps its most valuable contribution to the field of books about Vietnam is the surprising level of decency and hope evident amidst all of the suffering. Many of the Americans and Vietnamese described in the book go on to use their wartime experiences as launching pads to careers in humanitarian work throughout the world. And for that hopeful quality alone, Ms. Clark's book is a rare standout. As a Ph.D. student concentrating on Southeast Asian history, I would recommend After Sorrow Comes Joy as an important contribution to the canon of works on America's involvement in Vietnam. I would also recommend it as a great read for anyone interested in stories of unheralded but heroic Americans doing the anonymous humanitarian work that is so often overlooked in books about soldiers, protesters, and policy makers. It is a different Vietnam story, but it is one that should have been told a long time ago.